UP suspends 12 IPS officers, 6500 cops sacked

Lucknow, Sep 11: The Uttar Pradesh government today suspended 12 senior IPS officers in the state for their involvement in the police recruitment ''scam'' during the previous Mulayam Singh Yadav regime and anulled 14 recruitment boards in which a total of 6504 civil police and PAC constables were recruited.

With this, the government also cancelled the recruitments of 6504 policemen selected by these boards.

State principal secretary (Home) J N Chamber told mediapersons here that of the suspended officer two are of IG rank, eight of DIG rank and the rest of SP rank. Besides the IPS officers, the government have also suspended 14 additional SPs and 40 Dy SPs for their involement in the scam.

Of the 12 IPS officers -- two officers Mukul Goel and Daljit Singh Choudhury -- are presently on central deputation. ''We have sent the letters to the Union government..they will be suspended by the central government,'' he added.

While Goel is on deputation with the ITBPF, Chaudhury is the personal secretery of a Union Minister of State for Home.

The other officers suspended are Chavinath Singh and R N Yadav (both IG rank), S K Mathur, B P Jogdand, Shailendra Pratap Singh, B M Tripathi, B B Bakshi and Akhilesh Mehlotra (all DIGs), S K Gupta and K Satya Vijayan (both SP rank).

According to the report submitted to the government, it was found that at the Gorakhpur recruitment centre, proxy candidates took the examination in 23 cases. This fact had already been verified by handwriting experts. While mandatory police verification was given a go-by in many cases, in other instances a large number of recruits had criminal records, while in Kanpur seven examination notebooks contained the same handwriting.

The report said in Etawah, examiners cleared 700 test papers in a day while in Gorakhpur, as many as 7,000 candidates were shown to have been interviewed in barely three days although individual interviews were mandatory.

During the investigation, it was found that more than 100 candidates cleared the physical measurement test despite being below the mandated 167.7 cm in height. Several cases were detected, where high-school and caste certificates were forged.

Meanwhile, the government had asked the state police chief to verify whether retiring IPS officers were involved in the scam.

''If they are involved, their retirement benefits might get affected,'' said an official.

Sources confirmed today that the DGP office had been asked to certify whether IPS officers, who were retiring in the next few months, were involved in the recruitment scam.

Between Septemer and December this year, a total of eight IPS officers are retiring from service.

''This is just a clarification...we are not doubting their integrity. It is just that after retirement, it is difficult to summon the official for his statement and other related matters,'' the official added.

UP suspends 12 IPS in police recruitment scam; 6,500 cops sacked The Home Secretary said a departmental enquiry would be initiated against these officials. ''FIRs wil be lodged against them and the Anti-Corruption Organisation (ACO) will further investigate the scam,'' he said. The report on the other 41 recruitment boards will be presented before the government by the end of the month.

''All those whose recruitment has been cancelled will be given a fair chance to particiapte in the new recruitment process...Those who have committed fraud will face the music,'' he said. While 5723 candidates were selected for civil police, 781 were selected for the Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC).

The state government also promised to set up new recruitment boards within six months. ''Meanwhile, a board, consisting of Renuka Kumar (Secretary Home), OPS Malik (ADG, Telecom) and Aditya Mishra (DIG, Intelligence), has been formed to guide the government on the process to make the new recruitments transparent and free of corruption.'' ''The scam was very serious in nature as the probe committee found. While in several cases, candidates had furnished fake high school certificates, we also found that answer sheets were re-written to help the favoured candidates...hand writing experts have proved this,'' he added.

Altogether over 22,000 policemen were recruited during the previous Samajwadi Party regime between the year 2004 and 2006 and several irregularities were detected during the probe conducted by the present Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) government when it came to power in May.

Samajwadi Party General Secretery Shivpal Singh said the probbe was politically motivated to tarnish the image of the previous government. ''Police officers who were not given good postings have alleged the scam...all the recruitments were genuine and as per standards laid down by the government,'' he said.

UNI